“Watching my friend Elon Musk short-circuit” (TNW #439) was an excellent article. It ends with Philip Low advising his former colleague to read Crime and Punishment.
Hopefully both Musk and Donald Trump will reflect on Raskolnikov’s fate in the book – both could certainly do with being exiled to Siberia. The USA and the world cannot survive much more of this narcissistic, power-mad behaviour.
Charles Thomas
Musk v Trump has been the political equivalent of television wrestling. Until the Trumpster actually cancels Musk’s contracts, or, even better, repatriates him to Mars, I’ll carry on fretting about what they’re actually trying to cover up.
Michael Rosenthal
Re: Patience Wheatcroft’s “Labour’s weird gift for alienating everyone” (TNW #439). Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’s story should have been relentlessly about the rebuilding of Britain. The simple narrative should have been: we’re at the start of a big project to reset the country so it works better, is more prosperous and that prosperity is felt by most people.
It is possible that this IS their narrative, but they have gone so cack-handedly about communicating it – scattergun announcements, not firmly tied to the central mission – that they are effectively in a pillory in the public square with no idea of how to get out. The government is probably doing a lot right, but we wouldn’t know it, as even friendly journalists feel too baffled and annoyed to properly defend them.
Getting a better media and PR operation going should be a priority, not to pull the wool over people’s eyes but to prevent this hugely important rebuild of the country getting stopped in its tracks just as it’s getting going.
Simon Riley
Rachel Reeves believes the nonsense that government has to run finances like a business. It doesn’t. She is stuck in pre-1971 thinking. This is not 21st-century management.
Keir Starmer doesn’t do leading. He’s being briefed by dinosaurs focused on red wall voters who will vote for Nigel Farage anyway.
Both need to think again about immigration and the single market – irrational fear around the first prevents rational discussion of the second. Start leading and stop following focus groups.
Lauren Smith
It’s a great shame and a huge disappointment how Labour have failed to stir the country after such a huge win. From Starmer and Reeves, we now need more explanation and transparency, more honesty over the issues they are facing and certainly a fiercer attack on the likes of Farage and co. Success is only achieved if you don’t fear failure!
Adam Primhak
Please, Alastair Campbell, offer your services as a spin doctor to Labour. Many, including myself, enjoy your journalistic analyses and insights each week, but the country is under existential threat and our collective mental health is seriously at stake!
Monica Lloyd
Well done to Sir Billy Boston on his well overdue knighthood, and well done Alastair Campbell for mentioning the lack of rugby league knighthoods in TNW #439.
I was still at junior school when my non-sporty father told me a top rugby league player shared our name. Unfortunately, by the time I started watching the mid-week TV matches featuring the still-missed Eddie Waring, the Wigan superstar had retired.
I’ve seen old footage and Sir Billy was truly as great as everyone said.
Robert Boston, Kingshill, Kent
Hopefully after Billy Boston we will see the rugby league knighthood imbalance addressed over the next four years. There are plenty of worthy candidates – Kevin Sinfield for example can’t be ignored for much longer!
John Slater
Re: “My year of London by Lime bike” by Paul Mason (TNW #439). On a recent trip to London, it was noticeable just how much of the morning commuter rush was taking place on two wheels. The riders were all ages and ranging from the lycra-clad to City-suited, and used a wider variety of bikes and scooters than I’d ever seen.
It was markedly more pleasant than the fume-choked streets I remember from my own years as a Londoner.
Gina Ford
London hospital casualty units are overwhelmed by injuries caused by poorly maintained and dangerous Lime bikes. They are an unregulated, unsafe addition to London’s streets.
Mike Newport
A question re: “The ugly truth about Farage’s baby boom” (TNW #439). Do the populist policies to encourage ‘native’ people to have more children actually work?
I’ve read that despite Viktor Orbán’s best efforts, the Hungarian birthrate has never been lower. Russia’s population keeps getting older. So are they working anywhere?
Christopher Harrison
Re: “The rise and flaws of agentic AI” (TNW #438). AI is being demonised just as any new development has been throughout human history. It will be as useful as we make it.
AI’s potential is enormous. There will come a day when it will be just a part of our reality and no one will give a second thought to it. It is early days, but through feeding AI knowledge on one end and the increasing number of people putting it to use on the other, we can see its usefulness improving daily.
There will always be safety to consider, but there is no case for the current doom-and-gloom portrayal of AI.
Karolina Hebel
In “Fears are not enough” (TNW #438), it was disappointing that Sonia Sodha did not mention that the Paris agreement allows developing countries to increase their CO2 emissions. At the time of the agreement, China was only 75th in the world in GDP per capita, while the UK was 25th.
Western nations, which have emitted so much CO2 historically, are supposed to be leading the way to net zero. Each country has to be judged in terms of its own targets, and China is doing better than we are (but almost nobody is doing enough).
China installed enough renewable energy generation capacity in 2023 alone to power the whole of the UK, and its emissions may have already peaked. We have still covered only 70% of our needs in the 10 years since Paris.
Peter Basford Herts
“Breathless with admiration”, Jason Solomons’s article on Richard Linklater’s new film Nouvelle Vague (TNW 437) was pure balm to the soul. For this francophile cinema-lover who spends so much time at the Cine Lumière, it highlighted yet again how valuable your culture section is.
The news/columnists are very important, but just as important is that you provide such good cultural content, which acts as a counterpoint to the current geo-political madness we are living through. Heartfelt thanks!
Danny Daly London SE20
BELOW THE LINE
Re: “One big beautiful Bill” (TNW #439). I think Trump is more Jerry Springer than William F Buckley Jr, but the antecedents are there.
JULIAN DOUGLAS-SMITH
“Everything you know about inflation is wrong” (TNW #439) was another great read from Jonty Bloom, who hammers another nail in the coffin of neoliberalism.
Monetarism did not cause the low inflation of the Thatcher era. Deflation did, resulting from mass unemployment when Thatcher ripped subsidies from state industries. It is ironic that voters in many former industrial areas are flocking to Reform, who believe that a more extreme version of neoliberalism will solve the ills that neoliberalism created in the first place.
MARK GRAHAME
Re: “Can padel take over the world?” (TNW #438). I’m stunned that a one-hour padel court in London costs £80! For one hour in Madrid it is €18.72 (£15.86). LESLEY GIBSON
Re: “When language is child’s play” (TNW #437). My first language was Arabic, my second and third Chinese and Malay, and my fourth pidgin English. My father was in the army, so I had lived in four different countries by the age of seven.
DAVID O’CONNOR THOMPSON
